The government is to give local authorities a capital grant of £13million to invest in mobile IT for social workers.
The grant, announced by children’s minister Parmjit Dhanda, is to be spent on mobile IT including laptops and personal digital assistants and is aimed at helping social workers adapt to new ways of working and keep in step with developing technologies.
Dhanda said: “Supplying social workers with mobile technology will result in significant time savings, allowing more flexibility. This will ultimately result in social workers spending more time having face to face meetings with the people they are there to support – society’s most vulnerable children. “
The DfES said the conditions of the grant would be explicit on the subject of security. It added: “Any mobile devices will need to have the appropriate security capabilities, and staff training must address this issue. The uploading or downloading of case data will be subject to the physical and programme security requirements applicable to the data concerned.”
The need for the investment in IT was highlighted by the Options for Excellence review of developments for England’s social workers undertaken jointly by the Department for Education and Skills and the Department of Health.
Guidance on spending the capital grant was due to be sent to Directors of Children’s Services at the end of March, to coincide with the publication of the Children’s Workforce Strategy Update.